A law suit filed in Montreal this summer raises novel copyright arguments regarding AI-generated works. The plaintiffs are artist Amel Chamandy and Galerie NuEdge Fine Arts (which sells and exhibits her art). They are suing artist Adam Basanta for copyright and trademark infringement. (The trademark infringement arguments are not discussed in this post). Mr Basanta is a world renowned new media artist who experiments with AI in his work. (See the Globe and Mail story by Chris Hannay on this law suit here).

According to a letter dated July 4, filed with the court, Mr. Basanta’s current project is “to explore connections between mass technologies, using those technologies themselves.” He explains his process in a video which can be found here. Essentially, he has created what he describes as an “art-factory” that randomly generates images without human input. The images created are then “analyzed by a series of deep-learning algorithms trained on a database of contemporary artworks in economic and institutional circulation” (see artist’s website). The images used in the database of artworks are found online. Where the analysis finds a match of more than 83% between one of the randomly generated images and an image in the database, the randomly generated image is presented online with the percentage match, the title of the painting it matches, and the artist’s name. This information is also tweeted out. The image of the painting that matches the AI image is not reproduced or displayed on the website or on Twitter.

One of Mr Basanta’s images was an 85.81% match with a painting by Ms Chamandy titled “Your World Without Paper”. This information was reported on Mr Basanta’s website and Twitter accounts along with the machine-generated image which resulted in the match.

The copyright infringement allegation is essentially that “the process used by the Defendant to compare his computer generated images to Amel Chamandy’s work necessarily required an unauthorized copy of such a work to be made.” (Statement of Claim, para 30). Ms Chamandy claims statutory damages of up to $20,000 for the commercial use of her work. Mr Basanta, for his part, argues that there is no display of Ms Chamandy’s work, and therefore no infringement.

AI has been generating much attention in the copyright world. AI algorithms need to be ‘trained’ and this training requires that they be fed a constant supply of text, data or images, depending upon the algorithm. Rights holders argue that the use of their works in this way without consent is infringement. The argument is that the process requires unauthorized copies to be fed into the system for algorithmic analysis. Debates have raged in the EU over a text-and-data mining exception to copyright infringement which would make this type of use of copyright protected works acceptable so long as it is for research purposes. Other uses would require clearance for a fee. There has already been considerable debate in Europe over whether research is a broad enough basis for the exception and what activities it would include. If a similar exception is to be adopted in Canada in the next round of copyright reform, we will face similar challenges in defining its boundaries.

Of course, the Chamandy case is not the conventional text and data mining situation. The copied image is not used to train algorithms. Rather, it is used in an analysis to assess similarities with another image. But such uses are not unknown in the AI world. Facial recognition technologies match live captured images with stored face prints. In this case, the third party artwork images are like the stored face prints. It is AI, just not the usual text and data mining paradigm. This should also raise questions about how to draft exceptions or to interpret existing exceptions to address AI-related creativity and innovation.

In the US, some argue that the ‘fair use’ exception to infringement is broad enough to support text and data mining uses of copyright protected works since the resulting AI output is transformative. Canada’s fair dealing provisions are less generous than U.S. fair use, but it is still possible to argue that text and data mining uses might be ‘fair’. Canadian law recognizes fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, so if an activity qualifies as ‘research’ it might be fair dealing. The fairness of any dealing requires a contextual analysis. In this case the dealing might be considered fair since the end result only reports on similarities but does not reproduce any of the protected images for public view.

The problem, of course, with fair dealing defences is that each case turns on its own facts. The fact-dependent inquiry necessary for a fair dealing defense could be a major brake on innovation and creativity – either by dissuading uses out of fear of costly infringement claims or by driving up the cost of innovation by requiring rights clearance in order to avoid being sued.

The claim of statutory damages here is also interesting. Statutory damages were introduced in s. 38.1 of the Copyright Act to give plaintiffs an alternative to proving actual damage. For commercial infringements, statutory damages can range from $500 to $20,000 per work infringed; for non-commercial infringement the range is $100 to $5,000 for all infringements and all works involved. A judge’s actual award of damages within these ranges is guided by factors that include the need for deterrence, and the conduct of the parties. Ms Chamandy asserts that Mr Basanda’s infringement is commercial, even though the commercial dimension is difficult to see. It would be interesting to consider whether the enhancement of his reputation or profile as an artist or any increase in his ability to obtain grants would be considered “commercial”. Beyond the challenge of identifying what is commercial activity in this context, it opens a window into the potential impact of statutory damages in text and data mining activities. If such activities are considered to infringe copyright and are not clearly within an exception, then in Canada, a commercial text and data miner who consumes – say 500,000 different images to train an algorithm – might find themselves, even on the low end of the spectrum, liable for $250 million dollars in statutory damages. Admittedly, the Act contains a clause that gives a judge the discretion to reduce an award of statutory damages if it is “grossly out of proportion to the infringement”. However, not knowing what a court might do or by how much the damages might be reduced creates uncertainty that can place a chill on innovation.

Although in this case, there may well be a good fair dealing defence, the realities of AI would seem to require either a clear set of exceptions to clarify infringement issues, or some other scheme to compensate creators which expressly excludes resort to statutory damages. The vast number of works that might be consumed to train an algorithm for commercial purposes makes statutory damages, even at the low end of the scale, potentially devastating and creates a chill.

Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal has handed down a decision that addresses important issues regarding control over commercially valuable data. The decision results from an appeal of an earlier ruling of the Competition Tribunal regarding the ability of the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) to limit the uses to which its compilation of current and historical property listings in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) can be put.

Through its operations, the TREB compiles a vast database of real estate listings. Information is added to the database on an ongoing basis by real estate brokers who contribute data each time a property is listed with them. Real estate agents who are members of TREB in turn receive access to a subset of this data via an electronic feed. They are permitted to make this data available through their individual websites. However, the TREB does not permit all of its data to be shared through this feed; some data is available only through other means such as in-person consultation, or communications of snippets of data via email or fax.

The dispute arose after the Competition Commissioner applied to the Competition Tribunal for a ruling as to whether the limits imposed by the TREB on the data available through the electronic feed inhibited the ability of “virtual office websites” (VOWs) to compete with more conventional real estate brokerages. The tribunal ruled that they did, and the matter was appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal. Although the primary focus of the Court’s decision was on the competition issues, it also addressed questions of privacy and copyright law.

The Federal Court of Appeal found that the TREB’s practices of restricting available data – including information on the selling price of homes – had anticompetitive effects that limited the range of broker services that were available in the GTA, limited innovation, and had an adverse impact on entry into and expansion of relevant markets. This aspect of the decision highlights how controlling key data in a sector of the economy can amount to anti-competitive behavior. Data are often valuable commercial assets; too much exclusivity over data may, however, pose problems. Understanding the limits of control over data is therefore an important and challenging issue for businesses and regulators alike.

The TREB had argued that one of the reasons why it could not provide certain data through its digital feed was because these data were personal information and it had obligations under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to not disclose this information without appropriate consent. The TREB relied on a finding of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada that the selling price of a home (among those data held back by TREB) was personal information because it could lead to inferences about the individual who sold the house (e.g.: their negotiating skills, the pressure on them to sell, etc.). The Court noted that the TREB already shared the information it collected with its members. Information that was not made available through the digital feed was still available through more conventional methods. In fact, the Court noted that the information was very widely shared. It ruled that the consent provided by individuals to this sharing of information would apply to the sharing of the same information through a digital feed. It stated:“PIPEDA only requires new consent where information is used for a new purpose, not where it is distributed via new methods. The introduction of VOWs is not a new purpose – the purpose remains to provide residential real estate services [. . .].” (at para 165) The Court’s decision was influenced by the fact that the consent form was very broadly worded. Through it, TREB obtained consent to the use and dissemination of the data “during the term of the listing and thereafter.” This conclusion is interesting, as many have argued that the privacy impacts are different depending on how information is shared or disseminated. In other words, it could have a significant impact on privacy if information that is originally shared only on request, is later published on the Internet. Consent to disclosure of the information using one medium might not translate into consent to a much broader disclosure. However, the Court’s decision should be read in the context of both the very broad terms of the consent form and the very significant level of disclosure that was already taking place. The court’s statement that “PIPEDA only requires new consent where information is used for a new purpose, not where it is distributed via new methods” should not be taken to mean that new methods of distribution do not necessarily reflect new purposes that go beyond the original consent.

The Federal Court of Appeal also took note of the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision in Royal Bank of Canada v. Trang. In the course of deciding whether to find implied consent to a disclosure of personal information, the Supreme Court of Canada had ruled that while the balance owing on a mortgage was personal information, it was less sensitive than other financial information because the original amount of the mortgage, the rate of interest and the due date for the mortgage were all publicly available information from which an estimate of the amount owing could be derived. The Federal Court of Appeal found that the selling price of a home was similarly capable of being derived from other publicly available data sources and was thus not particularly sensitive personal information.

In addition to finding that there would be no breach of PIPEDA, the Federal Court of Appeal seemed to accept the Tribunal’s view that the TREB was using PIPEDA in an attempt to avoid wider sharing of its data, not because of concerns for privacy, but in order to maintain its control over the data. It found that TREBs conduct was “consistent with the conclusion that it considered the consents were sufficiently specific to be compliant with PIPEDA in the electronic distribution of the disputed data on a VOW, and that it drew no distinction between the means of distribution.” (at para 171)

Finally, the Competition Tribunal had ruled that the TREB did not have copyright in its compilation of data because the compilation lacked sufficient originality in the selection or arrangement of the underlying data. Copyright in a compilation depends upon this originality in selection or arrangement because facts themselves are in the public domain. The Federal Court of Appeal declined to decide the copyright issue since the finding that the VOW policy was anti-competitive meant that copyright could not be relied upon as a defence. Nevertheless, it addressed the copyright question in obiter (meaning that its comments are merely opinion and not binding precedent).

The Federal Court of Appeal noted that the issue of whether there is copyright in a compilation of facts is a “highly contextual and factual determination” (at para 186).The Court of Appeal took note of the Tribunal’s findings that “TREB’s specific compilation of data from real estate listings amounts to a mechanical exercise” (at para 194), and agreed that the threshold for originality was not met. The Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the relevance of TREB’s arguments about the ways in which its database was used, noting that “how a “work” is used casts little light on the question of originality.” (at para 195) The Court also found no relevance to the claims made in TREB’s contracts to copyright in its database. Claiming copyright is one thing, establishing it in law is quite another.

Note that leave to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada was denied on August 23, 2018.

The Ontario Court of Appeal has just handed down its decision in Keatley Surveying Ltd. v. Teranet Inc. The case involved a copyright dispute between land surveyors and the private company retained by the Province of Ontario to run its land titles registry. There are relatively few court decisions that discuss Crown copyright in Canada, and so this case has been an interesting one to watch.

It has long been accepted that land survey plans are works in which copyright subsists and that the author of a plan of survey is the surveyor. Under the Copyright Act, this creates a default presumption that the surveyor is the owner of copyright in the work. The dispute in this case is about what happens when that plan is deposited in the provincial land titles registry. While such deposits have been taking place for decades, the issue only became controversial after Ontario moved from its old paper-based registry to an electronic system run by a private company on behalf of the province. Under the electronic system, Teranet, the private company, charges fees for access and for the downloading of documents, including plans of survey. The plaintiff, representing the class of surveyors, objected to what it saw as Teranet profiting from the commercial reproduction and dissemination of their copyright-protected works.

For the surveyors to succeed with their action, they had to establish that they owned the copyright in their works. Section 12 of the Copyright Act reads:

12. Without prejudice to any rights or privileges of the Crown, where any work is, or has been, prepared or published by or under the direction or control of Her Majesty or any government department, the copyright in the work shall, subject to any agreement with the author, belong to Her Majesty and in that case shall continue for the remainder of the calendar year of the first publication of the work and for a period of fifty years following the end of that calendar year.

The trial judge found that since they did not create the works under the direction or control of Her Majesty, the Crown could not be said to be the owner of copyright in the plans. However, he was unwilling to find that copyright remained with the surveyors, since to do so might jeopardize the land titles system. Instead, he found that copyright in the plans of survey is “transferred to the province” when plans are deposited. This conclusion is somewhat problematic. As I pointed out in my post on this earlier decision, the Copyright Act requires a signed assignment in writing in order for a transfer of ownership to take place. If the provincial legislation effected a transfer of ownership other than according to the terms of the federal Copyright Act, then this would seem to be a potentially unconstitutional interference with federal jurisdiction over copyrights.

Although constitutional issues were raised before the Court of Appeal, the Court of Appeal arrived at its decision in a way that managed to evade them. The Court agreed that surveyors were the authors of their plans and were thus the original copyright owners. It also agreed that the Crown in right of the Province of Ontario ended up as the copyright owner once the plans became part of the registry. However, Justice Doherty, writing for the unanimous court, disagreed with the approach taken by the trial judge, and rejected the idea that there was a transfer of ownership when plans were deposited in the land titles registry. Instead he adopted a rather interesting interpretation of Crown copyright.

Section 12 of the Copyright Act provides thatthe Crown is the owner of copyright in any work that “is, or has been, prepared or published by or under the direction or control of Her Majesty […]”. Justice Doherty agreed that the plans were not prepared under the direction or control of Her Majesty, but focused instead on the “or published” part of s. 12. In his view, “[m]ere publication” by the Crown does not give rise to Crown copyright – the publication has to be “by or under the direction or control of Her Majesty”. Justice Doherty reviewed the legislation and regulations that related to the land titles system. He noted that the legislation provides for deposit of plans of survey with the province’s Land Registry Office. The statutory scheme also sets strict parameters for the form and content of any plans of survey that are to be deposited. The plans are subject to review, and the Examiner of Surveys can raise questions about the plans with the surveyors, and can require changes to be made before the plans are finally accepted. Justice Doherty noted that this review process did not constitute the “direction or control” necessary to give rise to Crown copyright on the basis that the works were prepared under the direction or control of Her Majesty. However, he found it relevant to the question of whether the “subsequent publication of the registered or deposited plans occurs under the “direction or control” of the Crown.” (at para 37).

Justice Doherty also noted that once a survey plan is deposited in the register, the surveyor is no longer able to make any changes to it without permission from the Examiner of Surveys.He observed that s. 145(6) of the Land Titles Actalso permits the Examiner to make changes at the behest of a third party. Both the Land Titles Act and the Registry Act provide that “certified copies of registered or deposited plans of survey must be made available to members of the public upon payment of the prescribed fee.” (at para 39) Justice Doherty found that the statutory obligation to provide copies of a work “is fundamentally inconsistent with the claim by the document’s author to a right to control the making of copies of the document.” (at para 40) He observed as well that O.Reg 43/96 to the Registry Act provides that no plan deposited in the registry can include “any notes, words or symbols that indicate that the right to make or distribute copies is in any way restricted.” (s. 9(1)(e)).

Justice Doherty found that this combination of provisions created a context in which the Crown has “complete control over registered or deposited plans of survey and complete control over the “publication” of those plans of survey within the meaning of the Copyright Act.” (at para 44) As a result, the plans are works that are published under the direction or control of the Crown, giving rise to Crown copyright in the documents. He stated:

Considered as a whole, the provisions demonstrate that plans of survey registered or deposited in the ELRS are held and published entirely under the Crown’s direction and control. Ownership of copyright does not, however, flow from the provincial land registration scheme. It is s. 12 of the Copyright Act that vests the copyright in the Crown by virtue of the publication of those plans under the “direction or control” of the Crown. (At para 45.)

The solution arrived at by the Court of Appeal is certainly more elegant than that proposed by the trial judge. Nevertheless, it does raise important questions.The first is what actually happens to the original copyright of the surveyors. The Court accepts that they are the first owners of copyright, and that the legislative system does not effect a transfer of rights. Yet at the end of the day, the Court finds that the Crown has copyright in the works. Presumably this extinguishes the copyright of the surveyors, but on what basis? If it is not a transfer, is it an expropriation? What level of statutory/regulatory control is required to trigger such a shift in ownership?

It might not have been necessary for the court to go so far as to find that the Crown assumed copyright over these works. At one point Justice Doherty states that:“The copyright rests in either the Province or the land surveyor who prepared the plan of survey. If the land surveyor has copyright, the making and distribution of paper or digital copies of the plan of survey is a breach of copyright whether done by an employee of the Province or by a third party hired by the Province to perform that function.” (at para 19). What this statement overlooks is the possibility of a licence – one that might well be implied once a surveyor deposits a plan with the land titles registry. Essentially, the same provisions of the statutory regimes governing the registration of plans of survey could be used to support the view that a surveyor who deposits a plan with the registry provides a broad, perpetual licence to the government to reproduce and disseminate the plans as part of the land titles system.

Crown copyright has been a thorn in the side of many who see it as unnecessary at its most benign and a threat to open government at its worst. This decision may breathe complicated new life into this controversial fixture of the Canadian copyright regime.

A recent incident raises important issues about excessive control over data and information. Open data activists, who have long battled to liberate government data will recognize the principles at play here. The difference in this case, is that the data over which control is being asserted are in private sector hands. Yet while the law necessarily provides means for private sector organizations to exercise control over data and information in appropriate circumstances, this control is not without its limits. In this case, the limits may have been seriously overstepped.

A Toronto-area man who posted his own data-visualization based on Toronto real estate data hasreceived a blunt cease and desist notice from counsel for the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB). The story, which was reported by David Hains in Metro News, explains that the 26 year old data analyst named Shafquat Arefeen created the visualization as a personal project and posted it on his non-commercial website. The visualization, which is no longer available as a result of the letter, provided an overview of housing sales activity in Toronto and contained data that, among other things, showed the differences between listing and selling prices, including data for specific house sales.

The cease and desist letter makes it clear that the TREB believes that the data were taken from its proprietary website. There are some interesting issues around accessing and using data hosted on a web platform, including whether any terms of use associated with the site are binding on the user. The letter, however, does not raise any contractual claims. Instead, it asserts copyright – apparently in the data. Mr. Arefeen denies that he obtained the data from the TREB site. Whether he did or not, the copyright claims are independently worth considering.

Copyright law does protect compilations, including compilations of data. Yet, where data are part of a compilation, all that is protected is the originalselection or arrangement of the data. In a 2016 decision of the Competition Tribunal regarding the TREB’s data, the Tribunal stated that it was: “not persuaded that TREB owns copyright in the MLS Database, including the Disputed Data. In brief, the Tribunal has concluded that TREB has not led sufficient evidence to establish the level of skill, judgment and labour required for the MLS Database to benefit from copyright protection.” (at para 731)

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that there is a copyright claim to be made. Even in those cases where copyright in a compilation of data is found to exist, a second user who does not take a substantial part of the selection or arrangementof the data does not infringe copyright. If Mr. Arefeen’s visualization was his own original expression of the data that he used, then it would be very difficult to sustain an argument that there was a substantial taking of the arrangement of the TREB’s data. It is not clear whether it constituted substantial taking of any original selection of the data – this is far from an open and shut issue. Yet even if a court were to find substantial taking of a selection, Mr. Arefeen would be entitled to rely upon the fair dealing exceptions in the Copyright Act. The Supreme Court of Canada has mandated a generous approach to fair dealing, and there is every possibility that this non-commercial use might be considered fair – in other words, not infringing. The bottom line is that any claim to either copyright in the data or infringement of any such copyright would appear to be very weak.

The cease and desist letter also contains strong language alleging that Mr. Arefeen’s use of the data was a violation of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). PIPEDA applies only to personal information that is collected, used or disclosed in the course of commercial activity. Mr. Arefeen’s website appears to be non-commercial – it does not even contain advertising.If this is the case, PIPEDA does not apply. There are also exceptions to the application of PIPEDA where information is collected, used or disclosed for journalistic or artistic purposes. Frankly, it’s hard to see how PIPEDA would apply in this instance.

The cease and desist letter achieved its objective in that Mr. Arefeen took down his data visualization, and it is no longer available to a public according to the newspaper coverage found it useful and interesting. This allows the TREB to maintain control over its closely controlled data about the real estate market in Ontario. It also enables it to restrict public engagement with data that are relevant, interesting and important to Toronto residents. The outcome highlights the imbalance between well-resourced data ‘owners’ and data users – particularly those who act in the public interest. Such users often have limited resources either to pay for data licences or to hire lawyers to push back against excessive claims. The result is far from being in the public interest.

In early July 2017 I attended an excellent workshop hosted by researchers at the Centre for Information Technology, Society and Law at the University of Zurich. The objective of the workshop was to bring a group of academic experts together to discuss data ownership rights.

It is perhaps not surprising that the issue of ownership rights in data is bubbling to the surface as we move further into the evolving big data environment. Data have been described as the new “oil” of the information society. They have a tremendous value and are strongly linked to innovation. One of the ways in which industrialized nations have nurtured innovation has been through the creation of intangible property rights such as intellectual property rights. Data ownership rights flow from that same industrial era mind set. However, it is far from clear that this paradigm is a good fit for data and data-related innovation.

In fact, the way data are made available and the extent to which data are flowing across sectors and organizations, play a fundamental role in sustaining and developing the emergence of a European data-driven economy. In defining and specifying the rights to create, edit, modify, share and restrict access to data, data ownership becomes a pivotal factor affecting a growing number of potential data users and an increasing range of data-related activities.

One might perhaps be forgiven for thinking that there are already data ownership rights; for example, terms of service for websites frequently state that the company behind the website “owns” its data. Canada’s federal government even got its knuckles rapped by the Federal Court of Appeal for making a similar copyright-based claim in one of its data licences (see my post on this decision here). And, while the law of confidential information could be argued to provide a kind of property right in data or information, in reality what is protected by this body of law is the confidentiality of the information. Once confidentiality is lost, it is clear that there is no underlying ‘property’ right in the data.

Policy makers have long been wary of extending IP rights to data – and for some very good reasons. Copyright law, for example, does not protect “facts”, viewing them instead as the building blocks for creativity and expression, and therefore part of the public domain. Of course, copyright law does protect the original selection and arrangement that goes into creating a compilation of facts (i.e. a data set). How extensive this protection ultimately is depends on what a court sees as the taking of a substantial part of that selection or arrangement. It is this protection for compilations of data that no doubt supports those Terms-of-Service claims to ownership of data mentioned above, but the scope and extent of copyright protection in such circumstances is nevertheless limited and uncertain. In the EU, database rights have provided a broader protection for databases, but it still, fundamentally, is not a protection for the data that make up the database.

It is difficult to see where the interest in a data ownership right is coming from. No clear or pressing need to enhance the protection available for data has been identified. Data ownership rights might be more likely to create confusion and uncertainty – and to increase transaction costs and slow innovation – than to improve the current situation. It would be difficult – and hugely problematic – even to begin to try to identify the ‘owners’ of rights in data and to manage the potential competing interests. And while there are undoubtedly issues around the fairness of particular uses of data, or the legitimacy of means used to acquire data, existing laws already offer a range of recourses and remedies that may be applicable in any given case.

The brief summary of our meetings on data ownership is now publicly available, and it addresses these and many other issues relating to data ownership rights. Our conclusions – that there is no evident need for a new data ownership right and that it would be impossibly difficult to define or constrain – offer a caution to those who regard property rights as a panacea in marketplaces of all kinds.

A recent Alberta Provincial Court decision raised interesting issues about access to law in the internet and open government era. The case involved a prosecution for alleged violations of the Safety Codes Actfor non-compliance with the Alberta Fire Code (AFC).The accused, Mr. Khan, was ultimately acquitted of all counts – the alleged breaches of the AFC were related to either an improper conversion of his property into a rooming house or the improper addition of a secondary suite. The court ultimately found that it had not been established that he had done either of these things.

The access to law issues arose because Mr. Khan, in his defence, raised a number of arguments regarding the relative inaccessibility of the Alberta Fire Code (AFC), and thus his inability to know what rules applied to his actions. In particular, he argued that the AFC was insufficiently published and distributed such that it would be a violation of section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to find people bound by its provisions. He also argued that the defence of “Invincible Mistake of Law” applied to him since the AFC cannot be sufficiently known or followed because of the defects in its publication.

The Alberta Fire Code is one of those sets of rules that occupy a rather odd conceptual space. It sets out binding rules that must be followed, but it is not a provincial regulation enacted by the sitting government and published through the normal channels. Instead, it is a code that is developed by (in this case) the National Research Council, through the participation of volunteer experts from relevant stakeholder groups that include government, industry and the public. Codes developed by the NRC (which include the Fire Code, the Building Code, the Plumbing Code and the Enercy Code) are then adopted by provincial and territorial governments. For example, in Alberta, it is the Fire Code Regulation under the Safety Codes Act that adopts the AFC and declares it to be in force in the province.

In the good old analog days, the difference in accessibility between laws, regulations, and codes like the AFC would have been much harder to spot. Anyone wanting to know what the Safety Codes Act or the Fire Code Regulation provided would have had to get themselves to a library that carried legal texts. They would likely have also found a copy of the AFC at the same library. Alternatively, they could have paid the Queen’s Printer for print copies of the statute and the regulation. The provincial department of municipal affairs would have been happy as well to sell them a copy of the AFC. As far as access goes, it was not wildly convenient – but there were both free and for-fee options, each requiring varying levels of effort.

By contrast, today anyone seeking a copy of a law or regulation can find these quickly, for free, and from anywhere they have internet access, either by visiting the website for the relevant legislature or by visiting the one-stop public resource that is CanLII. Mr. Khan’s arguments were all based around the fact that while the Safety Codes Act and the Fire Code Regulations are publicly available online and for free, the AFC is not. The AFC is still only available for free through a visit to a public library that has one in its collection (not all do). Alternatively, one can purchase a hard copy for $220, or pay for access through an online subscription (with a minimum fee of $40 for 10 days of access). The issue raised by Mr. Khan, therefore, was whether this type of access is good enough in the digital and open government era.

Judge Robertson acknowledged that “accessibility is a basic requirement of the law and forms an important fundamental of a justice system within a free and democratic society.”(at para 48) However, he found that the manner of publication of the AFC did not offend the principles of fundamental justice. He noted that the Safety Codes Act and Alberta Fire Regulation are widely available free of charge, and provide public notice of the application of the AFC. The AFC itself is available either through public libraries or by paying for access. He rejected the argument that the fees for access violated the Charter, noting that the fees charged were “diverted back to the continued maintenance and updating of the AFC, from which all citizens benefit.” (at para 64) Judge Robertson also noted that no evidence had been led to show that the cost of access would be prohibitive to “a significant percentage of homeowners” (at para 70). Further, he noted that “by the very nature of what it controls, the Fire Code is concerned with those who own capital in the form of real property. These individuals are sufficiently well-off to contemplate renovation of that property. Moreover, the purpose of such renovation would be to gain additional revenue from the use of the property as a multi dwelling unit or rooming house.”(at para 72)He found that in such circumstances, the modest cost of purchasing access to the AFC was unlikely to cause hardship.

Taking into account the fact that charges would only arise where there is non-compliance with the AFC, Judge Robertson also showed little sympathy for any defendant who had not gone through the permitting and inspection process required for renovations and who then argued that the AFC was not freely available. He noted that “Speaking generally, an individual cannot complain about the illegitimacy of secret state laws, regulations and Safety Codes, while at the same time, trying to hide unauthorized renovations or increased use of a property from the state.” (at para 75)

Perhaps most importantly from an open government perspective, Judge Robertson rejected the existence of any legal principle or case law mandating the state to “provide hard copy documents of its laws to all citizens absolutely free of charge.” (at para 76). He noted that obtaining hard copies of laws has always come with a fee; nothing has changed in this regard, even where there is also a free online alternative. As a result, there was no violation of s. 7 of the Charter.

Finally, Judge Robertson ruled that the defence of invincible mistake of law was not available. He noted that the AFC was not a secret document, was available to the public in different ways, and could be accessed both for free at some public libraries as well as at reasonable cost from the government. He noted that both the public permit system and a free inspection service provided by the Calgary Fire Department supported citizens in complying with the provisions of the Code.

Essentially, Judge Robertson finds that the current situation falls within what is constitutionally acceptable for access to laws. This does not mean, however, that accessibility could not or should not be improved. The discussion of the accessibility of the AFC and the fees charged for access was framed by a consideration of the laborious process for drafting and regularly updating safety codes such as the AFC through complex multi-stakeholder processes. While it is understandable that cost-recovery might be an objective of the publication arrangements, and while it is arguable the main market for the AFC will be those engaged in business and thus well-placed to pay the fees, the open government movement has generally pushed back against cost-recovery for data and documents regardless of the time and resources needed to prepare and publish them. Cost-recovery is only one policy factor to consider in a debate or discussion about openness. Other considerations, such as transparency and accessibility could outweigh its importance.

Judge Robertson also noted that the process of co-creation leaves copyright in the AFC shared between the federal and provincial Crowns. This means that the agreement of both levels of government is necessary for the publication and dissemination of the AFC. In other words, the decision to make such a document freely and openly available online is more complicated than it would be if only a single level of government is involved. It is worth noting that the often problematic role played by Crown copyright is the subject of a recent petition by Amanda Wakaruk, who advocates for a reform of Crown copyright when it comes to the publication of government documents. Wakaruk’s petition calls for government documents to be free of copyright restrictions once they are made public.

Copyright law is meant to provide limited monopoly rights to creators of works in order to serve the public interest. That public interest is in providing incentives to create new works and to disseminate them publicly. A recent Ontario Supreme Court decision raises the issue of whether the application of Canadian copyright law in the digital context is properly adapted to these purposes.

Trader Corporation v. CarGurus Inc. involved a dispute between two companies that provide digital marketplaces to consumers searching for new and used vehicles. Trader is the incumbent company in Canada, and operates digital marketplaces at autotrader.ca and autohebdo.net. CarGurus is a well-established American company that entered the Canadian market in early 2015. Both companies engage in very similar businesses – their websites provide listings of cars that are available for sale, complete with photographs of those vehicles. In the U.S., CarGurus populates its website with data from commercial partners that provide it with listings from dealers; it also scrapes car dealer websites for additional listings. Copyright law is not a practical barrier to this latter practice since most dealers are happy with the added publicity for the cars they sell. After all, the product is not the listing, but rather the car. If a dealer objects to the listing appearing on CarGurus’ site, CarGuru will remove it. On entering the market in Canada, CarGurus adopted a similar business model.

One difference between the context in the US and in Canada – a difference that was apparently not known to CarGurus – is that in Canada, Trader offers dealers the option to have a Trader’s trained photographer take photos of their cars for the dealer listings. Most dealers take their own photos; the Court found that Trader’s photos accounted for only 5% of the total number in Canadian dealer listings. Yet, though few in number, these photos are significant. Unlike the context in the US, where dealers owned copyright in their photos and were unlikely to object to these photos being used by CarGurus to reach a broader market for the cars, in Canada, Trader – a digital marketplace – was in a position to object to the use of its photos by a competing digital marketplace when dealer listings were scraped. This key difference between the US and Canadian contexts was not known to CarGurus at the time it commenced operations in Canada.

In addition to operating its digital marketplaces, Trader also licenses its data to other companies, including competing websites. When CarGurus entered the Canadian marketplace, Trader sent it a copy of its license agreement. However, CarGurus decided not to license the data because there were “a number of terms that were of great concern to CarGurus as they were designed to prevent CarGurus from effectively competing with Trader in the Canadian marketplace” (at para 12, citing testimony of CarGurus’ Senior Vice-President of Business Development.) CarGurus, confident in its US business model, proceeded on the assumption that individual dealers owned the copyrights in their photographs, and that they could deal with any objections on a dealer-by-dealer basis. Instead, they were sued by Trader.

In pursuing CarGurus, Trader sought three main things: a declaration that CarGurus had infringed its copyright; statutory and punitive damages for infringement; and a permanent injunction preventing CarGurus from using Trader’s photos.

The issue of copyright infringement was relatively straightforward. Photographs are copyright-protected works. CarGurus argued, without success, that Trader’s photos lacked sufficient originality, as the photographers had been trained to take photos in a particular way and according to specifications and thus did not independently exercise the skill and judgment required to meet the threshold for originality. The Court noted that “the fact that the photographers receive training and follow standardized procedures does not eliminate the use of their skill and judgment in taking the photos, nor does it reduce the exercise of taking the photos to a simple mechanical exercise.” (at para 24) Justice Conway also rejected the argument that there had been a merger of idea and expression in the photos of cars. She stated:“I do not consider that there is such a limited number of ways to photograph vehicles for sale that affording Trader copyright protection would somehow give it a monopoly on photographing vehicles for sale.” (at para 25)

Having established that Trader had copyright in its photographs, the next issue was whether there was a viable defense to infringement. CarGurus first argued that its use was fair dealing. Justice Conway accepted that the copying could be for the statutory purpose of “research” when considered from the perspective of the end user who is searching for a car to purchase. However, she found that CarGuru’s dealing with the works could not be characterized as “fair”.This was because the photos were widely disseminated over the internet, and because CarGurus used the photos in their entirety. Further, she found that CarGurus had alternatives to the dealing – it could have taken its own photographs of the cars. Justice Conway found that the ultimate effect of CarGurus’ use of the photos “was to compete squarely with Trader in the Canadian digital marketplace arena.” (at para 39) As a result, she ruled that the fair dealing defense was not available.

CarGurus also argued that it should benefit from the relatively new statutory defense for operators of “information location tools”. Section 41.27 of the Copyright Act limits a plaintiff’s remedies to an injunction where a suit is brought against an operator of “any tool that makes it possible to locate information that is available through the Internet or another digital network.” As Justice Conway noted, the exemption was added to the Act in 2012 to protect providers of such tools because of the public interest in being able to easily “use and navigate the internet” (at para 43). Justice Conway – the first judge to interpret this provision – found that CarGurus did not qualify for the exception because their site did not help users locate information on the internet.While browsers allow users to search for content and provide links to relevant content (and thus qualify as information location tools) CarGurus located information and gathered it on its own website and then made it available to users. She ruled that this type of activity fell outside the exception. She noted that initially CarGurus did not even provide the dealer name and information associated with different listings; to access these, the user had to use CarGurus as a go-between. It did eventually provide information on the dealers, including the URLs for their websites. However, Justice Conway noted that “while the addition of that information might have assisted the user in conducting its own additional searches or contacting the Dealer where the vehicle was located, CarGurus was still not providing a tool that enabled the user to get the online location of that vehicle information.” (at para 50).

Trader sought statutory damages for infringement. In the case of commercial infringement, the statutory damages provisions allow for a range of damages between $500 and $20,000 for all infringements relating to each work. Because the court had found that CarGurus had copied 152,532 of Trader’s photographs, even using the lowest amount in the range would lead to an award of over $76 million dollars. This is an outrageous amount of money in the circumstances, and so Justice Conway used her judicial discretion, provided for in s. 38.1(5), to lower the amount of the statutory damages award. She noted that “Trader has suffered no monetary damages and has lost no business as a result of the infringement.” (at para 56).

Justice Conway took into account a number of factors in adjusting the statutory damages award. She noted that CarGurus did not scrape data from Trader’s site; rather it scraped data from the sites of dealers. It used a business model it had used successfully in the US, and had sought legal advice before entering the Canadian market. It was unaware that some of the photos it was scraping were taken by Trader employees – and in fact, she noted that Trader had not apprised CarGurus of this fact until well into its back and forth with CarGurus over its activities. In Trader’s initial contacts with CarGurus in June 2015 it had asserted a violation of copyright in its autotraders.ca site; the issues regarding the photographs were not raised until December 2, 2015. She also took into account the fees charged by Trader under its license agreements for use of all of its photographs – whether its own or those supplied by dealers. She noted that had CarGurus entered into this agreement it would have had to pay only $17,535 for the photos during the infringement period. She also noted that during the relevant period CarGurus had not made a profit in Canada. She nevertheless expressed the view that CarGurus did not carry out appropriate due diligence in seeing whether its business model was transferable from the US to Canada. In the end, she awarded statutory damages in the amount of $2 per photo, for a total of $305,064. She declined to award punitive damages.

Justice Conway also declined to order a permanent injunction against CarGurus. She noted that the company had already removed all of Trader’s photos from its site. It had also undertaken not to reproduce other Trader photos in the future provided there was a way for it to identify which photos are those of Trader. Rather than continuing to scrape dealer websites, CarGurus was now obtaining its photos from “feed providers” who had already been told not to provide any Trader photos to CarGurus.In declining to issue the injunction, Justice Conway made the point that “the practical effect of any such injunction would be for CarGurus to clear with Trader in advance the rights to any Canadian photos it wishes to use, or enter into a license agreement with Trader on mutually acceptable terms.” (at para 70). She agreed with counsel for CarGurus that this would effectively force CarGurus “to enter into Trader’s syndication agreement or cease operating in Canada.” (at para 70).

This case raises – but does not really confront – interesting issues around the enforcement of copyrights in publicly available content on the internet. There are very clear tensions here between protection against unfair competition and the suppression of competition in the marketplace, where the scraping of content has indirect and immaterial effects but the enforcement of copyright can hamper or limit competition. It is not that Justice Conway’s decision is unsupportable in law – it offers an eminently reasonable interpretation of the applicable provisions. The question is whether the law finds the right balance. As Justice Conway notes, Trader could not demonstrate actual losses as a result of CarGurus’ conduct. The car dealers whose cars were the subject of the photos were not prejudiced; and none of the scraped content was taken from Trader’s site. The takeaway for companies in a similar position to Trader might be that they should deliberately salt online sites with some of their own copyright protected content (as little as 5% of overall content is clearly enough) in order to stifle the efforts of data aggregators to build independent marketplaces. It is a way to use copyright law to achieve purposes that have nothing to do with protecting creators of works or providing incentives to create new ones. It is not clear that the result is in the public interest – and, to return to the opening of this post – it is the public interest that copyright is ultimately meant to serve.

The Federal Court has just released a decision in a case that raised issues of fair dealing and copyright abuse. Blacklock’s, an Ottawa-based online news agency, had argued that officials at the Department of Finance breached its copyright in news articles when these articles were circulated internally. The decision is an important confirmation of the ‘right to read’ in Canada and may go some way to dispelling the aftertaste of an earlier flawed decision by the Ontario Small Claims Court in a similar dispute.

Blacklock’s business model is to offer its news content on a subscription-only basis. Its articles are behind a paywall, and only subscribers, equipped with a password, can gain access to them. Individual subscriptions are available for $148 a year, whereas institutional subscription rates range between $11,470 and $15,670.

In this case, a reporter from Blacklock’s had interviewed the President of the Canadian Sugar Institute, Sandra Marsden, for a story relating to sugar tariff changes. The same reporter had sought comments from Department of Finance officials and ultimately had an exchange of email correspondence with the Department’s media relations officer. In what appears to be Blacklock’s practice, teasers about the story were sent out to Marsden by email and by Twitter. Based on the teasers Marsden became concerned about the accuracy of the article. She paid for an individual subscription in order to access it. After reading the article her concerns grew and she cut and pasted the article into an email, to a Department official. The same reporter wrote a follow up piece which Marsden also found problematic; she forward this piece to the Department of Finance as well. The two articles were circulated between a total of 6 Finance employees who discussed amongst themselves whether any follow-up with Blacklock’s was required. In the end it was decided that the matter should be dropped.

Justice Barnes found that there was no disputing that the Finance officials had used Blacklock’s copyright-protected material without paying for it or seeking Blacklock’s consent. The key issue was whether the use fell within the fair dealing exception for research or private study in s. 29 of the Copyright Act. After reviewing the Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark fair dealing decision in CCH Canadian v. Law Society of Upper Canada and its more recent decision in SOCAN v. Bell Canada, he concluded that the use constituted fair dealing. He noted that, according to the case law, “research” does not have to lead to the creation of a new work of authorship; it can be ““piecemeal, informal, exploratory, or confirmatory”, and can be undertaken for no purpose except personal interest.” (at para 31)

Justice Barnes found that the Finance officials “had legitimate concerns about the fairness and accuracy” of the reporting in the article. Her further found the internal circulation of the piece was justified on the basis that “[e]veryone involved had a legitimate need to be aware in the event that further action was deemed necessary”. (at para 35) He identified a number of considerations that influenced his conclusion that the officials’ dealing with the material was fair. He noted that the articles had not been obtained by illegal means such as hacking the website; rather, they had been provided by a subscriber to the site who had legally accessed them and had forwarded them for “a legitimate business reason”. (at para 36) The articles had been sent to the Finance officials and not solicited by them; they received limited circulation; and they were not republished or used for any commercial purpose. The court also found that the two articles were a tiny fraction of the content available from the Blacklock’s site. Further, Justice Barnes opined that “a finding of copyright infringement against a news source for the simple act of reading the resulting copy is likely to have a chilling effect on the ability of the press to gather information.” (at para 36). Justice Barnes also stated that “copyright should not be a device that serves to protect the press from accountability for its errors and omissions.” (at para 36).

Blacklock’s had argued that its terms and conditions for access to its paywalled content had been breached when the material was forwarded to Finance officials, and that this breach should serve to negate a finding of fair dealing. Justice Barnes appeared sympathetic to this argument on its face, stating that it was a “relevant consideration” (though he did not state that it would necessarily be determinative). However, he cautioned that for this factor to be taken into account, the copyright owner would have to demonstrate that the user was aware of the terms and conditions and that the terms and conditions actually barred the conduct at issue. In this case, he found that none of the parties involved had either read or even been aware of Blacklock’s terms and conditions which were not readily part of the process for signing up for an individual subscription. He also found that the terms and conditions were not clear, stating:“On the one hand they seemingly prohibit distribution by subscribers but, on the other, they permit it for personal, or non-commercial uses.” (at para 42).

Blacklock’s also objected that a finding of fair dealing would undermine its business model – selling online news through a subscriber-only paywall. Justice Barnes was not particularly sympathetic, noting that “All subscription-based news agencies suffer from work-product leakage.” (at para 45) Further, he stated that “whatever business model Blacklock’s employs it is always subject to the fair dealing rights of third parties.” (at para 45) At the same time, he noted that by so stating, he was not endorsing “blameworthy conduct in the form of unlawful technological breaches of a paywall, misuse of passwords or the widespread exploitation of copyright material to obtain a commercial or business advantage.” (at para 45)

As I noted in an earlier comment on this case, the defendants had argued that Blacklock’s was engaged in copyright misuse and was acting as a kind of “copyright troll”. In fact, there are 9 other suits brought by Blacklock’s against the federal government on similar sets of facts. Noting that “there are certainly some troubling aspects to Blacklock’s business practices”, Justice Barnes nevertheless found it unnecessary to rule on the copyright abuse and trolling arguments in light of his findings on fair dealing. The other cases, which were stayed pending the resolution of this first dispute, may now end up being settled out of court.

In the course of his decision, Justice Barnes referred to what occurred in this case as “no more than the simple act of reading by persons with an immediate interest in the material.” (at para 36) This right to read is fundamentally important in a society that values knowledge and the freedom of expression. The decision makes it clear that business models for content distribution cannot run roughshod over certain fundamental users rights.

A pair of interesting copyright lawsuits are making their way through the federal court and are worth watching for the novel issues they raise and the potential they have for shaping copyright law in Canada.

One of these is actually a series of lawsuits brought by the news service Blacklock’s Reporter against a total of 7 federal government departments and agencies and 3 Crown corporations and agencies. Blacklock’s provides articles on a subscription basis only; it accuses the various defendants of having accessed copies of its articles without having subscribed to the service and in breach of their copyrights. The defendants argue that Blacklock’s “employs a pattern of writing misleading or inaccurate articles about an organization with the expectation that these articles would be accessed and shared internally.”[1] They then allege that Blacklock’s files access to information requests to uncover details of such access and distribution in order to issue claims for damages for copyright infringement. Essentially, they contend that Blacklock’s is engaged in copyright trolling. (Note that I wrote about an earlier law suit brought in Ontario small claims court by Blacklock’s against the Canadian Vintner’s Association here.)

The Federal Court has just upheld a prothonotary’s decision to streamline this litigation by issuing a stay of proceedings in 9 of the 10 lawsuits until certain legal issues have been aired and decided in the 10th. The decision is based on the view that since each of the cases raises similar issues, it would be more just and a more efficient use of resources to proceed in this way.

The defendants do not appear to deny having accessed the articles in question. Instead, they argue that the uses made of the articles in question were fair dealing (based on use of the material for “internal government reporting purposes”). They also raise the defense of copyright misuse. Copyright misuse relies on an argument that the copyright owner, through its conduct, is attempting to secure for themselves a broader right than it is entitled to by law. The defence now has a considerable track record in the United States, but remains novel in Canada. Clearly this litigation raises interesting arguments that make it worth following. The five-day trial for the case that is to go forward has been scheduled for September 2016.

A second case involves what is called a “reverse class action law suit” brought by Voltage Pictures against an as-yet unidentified group of defendants for copyright violation related to the downloading of films in which Voltage holds copyright. Typically a class action law suit is brought by a large group of plaintiffs who have all been harmed by the same wrong allegedly committed by a single defendant. The class action law suit allows plaintiffs to pool their efforts and it makes for a more efficient use of judicial resources. Class action law suits can also be used to hold defendants to account in cases where large numbers of people are negatively affected, but no single individual has suffered enough economic harm to make it worthwhile taking their case to court. In these ways, class action law suits improve access to justice. The reverse class-action law suit is quite another animal. In a reverse class-action law suit, there is a single plaintiff who essentially is arguing that it has been harmed by the actions of multiple defendants. Rather than sue each defendant individually, they proceed against a single defendant who is considered representative of the much larger class.

Voltage has recently succeeded in having a court compel Rogers Communications Inc. to reveal the name and address of a subscriber whose account has been linked by Voltage to allegedly illegal downloading activity. This will be the representative defendant in a law suit that may put the activities of thousands of other as yet unnamed ISP subscribers at issue. Of course, a court has yet to certify the reverse class action law suit.

Voltage’s strategy comes as both the courts and Parliament have put limits on the extent to which ordinary consumers can be targeted in copyright infringement lawsuits for non-commercial uses of works. By significantly limiting the damages available in such instances, Parliament made it deliberately difficult for copyright holders to launch law suits seeking massive amounts of damages against ordinary individuals – a practice that has become notorious in the United States. The “notice and notice” provisions of the Copyright Act also protect against sweeping accusations of copyright infringement that might otherwise limit freedom of expression by compelling the take down of content that might fall within the fair dealing exceptions to copyright infringement. Canadian courts have also been quite protective of individual privacy, requiring that a plaintiff establish a bona fide claim of copyright infringement before a court will issue an order compelling a service provider to produce customer name and address information that is linked to the allegedly infringing activity. The reverse class action lawsuit offers plaintiffs a work-around to some of these protective measures and could open the door to the large-scale pursuit of those who download unauthorized content over the internet. Both copyright owners and users’ rights advocates will be watching this case with interest.

The social sciences research community has been buzzing over the announcement on May 17, 2016 that the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN) has been acquired by Elsevier Publishing Group.

SSRN is a digital repository that was created in order to enable researchers in the social sciences to share their work in advance of its publication. Prior to the launch of SSRN, long delays between submission and print publication of papers had been a significant problem for researchers – particularly those working in rapidly changing and evolving fields. In addition, it was not always easy to find out who was working in similar areas or to be aware of developing trends in research as a result of the long publication delays. SSRN allows researchers to publish working papers, conference papers, and pre-print versions of accepted papers – as well as (where permitted by journals) published versions of papers. Access to the database is free to anyone with an Internet connection. This too is important for sharing academic research more broadly – many published academic journals sit behind digital paywalls making broader public access impractical or impossible. SSRN has been a game-changer, and it is now widely used by academics around the world as a vehicle for sharing research.

Elsevier is a commercial publisher which has, in the past, focused primarily on the fields of science, technology and health. It publishes over 2000 international journals. In recent years it has developed other information “solutions”. These include not only digital publishing platforms, but also data analytics, as well as tools to enhance and facilitate collaboration among researchers.

The controversy over the acquisition of SSRN lies in the deep distrust many researchers seem to have about the willingness of a commercial publisher known for its top-dollar subscriptions and generally restrictive access policies to maintain a publicly accessible information dissemination service that is free to both academics and the broader public. The founders of SSRN maintain that Elsevier, which also publishes open access journals, understands the need for broad sharing of research and has no intention of placing the site behind a paywall. They argue that SSRN’s acquisition by Elsevier will only enhance the services it can offer to scholars.

Critics of the sale of SSRN to Elsevier raise a number of concerns. One of these is, of course, whether SSRN will genuinely continue to be available as a free resource for sharing research. The reassurances of both Elsevier and SSRN’s founders are firm in this respect. Nevertheless, there are concerns that Elsevier might more strictly police what content is available on SSRN. It is likely the case that some academics post articles to which their publishers hold the copyright on the view that enough time has passed since publication to make free dissemination normatively if not legally acceptable.

The potential that access to some content might be limited is only one of the issues that should be on scholars’ radar – and it is probably not the most important one. By acquiring SSRN, Elsevier will enhance its expanding analytics capability – and data analytics are an important part of its business model. Researchers should consider the nature and extent of these analytics and how they might impact on the publication, dissemination, valuation and support for research in other venues and other contexts. For example, how might granting agencies or governments use proprietary data analytics to make decisions about what research to fund or not fund? Will universities purchase data from Elsevier to use in the evaluation of their researchers for tenure, promotion, or other purposes? Does it serve the academic committee to have so much data – and its analytic potential – in the hands of a single private sector organization? Given that this data might have important ramifications for scholars, and, by extension, for society, are there any governance, accountability or oversight mechanisms that will provide insight into how the data is collected or analyzed?

Essentially, the noble project that was SSRN has evolved into a kind of Facebook for academics. Researchers post their articles and conference papers to share with the broader community – and will continue to do so. While for researchers these works are what define them and are the “value” that they contribute to the site, the real commercial value lies in the data that can be mined from SSRN. Who collaborates with whom? How many times is a paper read or downloaded? Who cites whom, and how often? The commercialization of SSRN should be of concern to academics, but it is data governance and not copyright that should be the focus of attention.